U.S. FOREST SERVICE MISUSES SCIENCE
TO LOG SPOTTED OWL HABITAT IN SIERRA NEVADA

John Muir Project Sheds Light on Misleading Forest Service Brochure
By René Voss, Public Policy Director
John Muir Project
September 15, 2004

Cedar Ridge, CA - In recent months it has become clear to what extent the Bush Administration is willing to mislead the public so it can increase logging in the Sierra Nevada.

A number of Forest Service biologists have now come out in disagreement with statements in a Forest Service brochure, titled "Forests with a Future," which claims that forest fires are a serious threat to California spotted owls. Biologists inside and outside the agency have confirmed that at least 7 of 18 owl sites which the agency claims were destroyed by fire are green, recovering and are occupied by owls.

“They are not lost. We had owl surveys conducted after the burn and were able to put owls at each one,” said Gary Rotta, a biologist for the Plumas National Forest.

"The flier is totally bogus," said Michael Gertsch, a Forest Service wildlife biologist since 1976. Last year, nearing the end of the Administration's revision of the Sierra Nevada forest plan, Gertsch was removed from the team that wrote the plan after repeatedly complaining about the mischaracterization that owl sites, normally old growth forests, were being destroyed by wildfires. A statement he wrote for the plan that puts wildfires in perspective was dropped from the final version of the plan. "It was dropped because the conclusion of my analysis was that fire appears to be more of a maintenance mechanism than a destructive force for owl habitat," said Gertsch.

"The only reason the revisions were made was to allow logging of bigger trees,” said Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project (JMP). “It was a gift to the timber industry." JMP has appealed the plan.

"They are using concerns over the owl and concerns about loss of habitat as justification to do more logging of the habitat," said Monica Bond, a biologist who surveyed owls for the Forest Service at the Eldorado and Tahoe national forests and now works for the Center for Biological Diversity.

After incorporating the best science accumulated over 10 years, the Clinton Forest Service revised the Sierra Nevada forest plan and prohibited logging of most old growth forest.

However, using a claim of increased fire dangers as a reason, the agency under the Bush administration revised the plan earlier this year to allow for a tripling of logging levels, primarily targeted at larger trees.

But the claims about burned owl habitat aren't the only misleading items in the now infamous brochure.

Chad Hanson broke the story about misleading photographs that the Forest Service used in this same brochure titled "Forest with a Future." The AP story about these misleading photos was published in April in the L.A. Times and dozens of other papers across the country.

The brochure uses a series of photographs from 1909 to 1979 of a forest area as an illustration of why we need more logging in the Sierra Nevadas to prevent wildfires. The 1909 photo (see photo on left) shows an open parklike forest with a few large trees, spaced far apart.

However, the series of photographs weren't taken anywhere near the Sierra Nevada, nor did the Forest Service provide accurate description of their context.

"I was looking at the picture and I thought it looked awfully familiar," said Chad Hanson. "I started looking around and sure enough, the industry has used it before in Montana. It's from the Bitterroot Valley."

"If you look closely, you can see huge slash piles and stumps in the background,” he said. “They give the impression this represents natural, pre-settlement conditions, but the picture was taken after logging had occurred and most of the trees had been removed.”
The photo has been used a number of times in the past to justify more logging in Western forests outside of Montana and even in the Pacific Northwest. "I can’t believe they are still doing this," said Timothy Ingalsbee, director of the Western Fire Ecology Center in Eugene, Ore. He said the Forest Service published the same sequence of photos in a 1998 pamphlet “and misrepresented it to make it seem like it came from the forest just above Ashland, Oregon,” he said.

In contrast, a 1909 photo not included in the brochure from near Lake Como in the Bitterroot National Forest near Hamilton, Montana shows true unlogged pre-settlement conditions with deep shade and a thick understory (see photo on right).

The Forest Service hired a private public relations firm and spent $23,000 on 15,000 of the Sierra Nevada "Forest with a Future" brochures.

Congressional critics of the brochure, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Nick Rahall (D-W.V.), have asked the inspector general to investigate whether the Forest Service violated any laws by spending $90,000 for the services of One World Communications, Inc. of San Francisco.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Democrat's second-ranking member in the U.S. Senate called the photos "misleading," and continued by saying people “are smart enough to make up their own minds when presented with accurate facts, but this approach is disingenuous.”

The Forest Service defends its use of the brochures, and claims that the photos and information were not meant to mislead. “Our goal here was to...increase the clarity and understandability of our message,” spokesman Matt Mathes of the Forest Service said. “We needed to be accurate but not necessarily precise to the 99th degree.” The brochure is still being used and can be viewed at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/forestsfuture/pdfs/protecting.pdf (1.7 MB size).